Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of images that collectively represent a scene in motion. The substantial amount of original data needed to represent images in video may tax the capacity of currently available data storage devices. Furthermore, at currently available rates of data transmission, the substantial amount of original data needed to represent images in video may hinder the ability of a receiver to process received original data at a rate sufficiently fast enough to present, contemporaneously, the frames at a rate sufficiently fast enough to produce an illusion of continuity to the human eye.
Video compression processes may reduce the amount of original data needed to represent images in video by identifying instances in which the same or similar values of data are included at different locations in the bitstream and replacing the data in at least some of these locations with binary codes that identify the redundancy. Because the binary codes may use fewer bits than the values of the original data, the number of bits in the bitstream may be reduced.
In order to reduce the number of bits in the bitstream, some technical standards for video compression may provide for default processes to be performed by decoders compliant with the technical standard in the absence of binary codes directing different processes. Sometimes it may be possible to include in the bitstream a binary code that indicates that all other data associated with a block of video have been excluded from the bitstream.
In the drawings, the leftmost digit(s) of a reference number identifies the drawing in which the reference number first appears.